The Day Deer Asked For Help
by ragamuffin009
Summary: The day Deer asked for help from the other animals, Fox let him know they were friends, he found a Pig and a Butterfly in his kitchen, and Ferret, Racoon, and Crow made him a promise. The promise that his parents wouldn't make him leave his home. [AU]
1. A Lazy Summer Deer

Inspiration came to me while doing exactly what Shikamaru does in this chapter-Eating ice cream outside on a hot day.

Still not sure of the pairings, but later on I'm definitely bringing in the Sand Squad later(If you've read any of my other stuff, you'll know I simply can't write a story without Kankuro in it XD), and Naruto also makes an entrance around chapter 3.

* * *

Shikamaru sighed as he closed the door to his small country house, taking off his dusty trainers as he moved fluidly through the rooms until he reached the kitchen. It was the type of room that you'd typically see in catalogues that sell furniture and things like that, covered from floor to ceiling in what his mother called, "knick-knacks," and what his father called, "useless junk." Of course, since his_ mother_ said they were knick-knacks, that's what they _were_. The wallpaper was a tan-ish color, printed in a floral pattern that was also too often seen in catalogues. There was an old-fashioned gas stove, a _really_ old refrigerator, and hand-stitched things that said little sayings like, "home sweet home," and "home is where the heart is," and other such things involving _home._

And it _was_ Shikamaru's home, for as long as he could remember, he'd lived in the old country house in… well, the country. Nothing but grassy fields and dirt roads and the woods and the creek that ran through them. There were no school busses, as it was a small town, and in fact, the school was in the next town over.

Which Shikamaru walked to. Every. Single. Day.

And walked back from. Every. Single. Damn. Day.

But despite that, Shikamaru loved the house and the town and the wide open fields and the wide open skies that came with them, and how the deer that lived in the woods would sometimes plod up to you if you were quiet enough and still enough for a long time, hoping for a treat. He loved everything about it, even though he had no real friends outside of school, but who needs them? Friends lead to conflict, and make-ups and break-ups and other things too troublesome to even list. Shikamaru didn't need friends. He had the deer and the clouds and the fields and the creek.

But his parents were still trying to make him leave all of it behind.

They really expected Shikamaru to just leave _everything_ he loved behind, in favor of the noise and the people and the hard, grey, treeless streets of the city. He couldn't imagine life without the sounds of the peepers and the chirping of the crickets and the soft babbling of the stream, and the creak of the old house settling. He couldn't fathom a reason to leave the smells of the sweet summer grass, of pies baking, or even the smell of the attic, which was musty yet so undeniably familiar to anyone who came across it, even if it was their first time _in_ one.

Especially not when the beautiful sounds would be replaced by honking and yelling and sirens and actually _hearing_ your neighbors talk through the thin walls of an apartment complex. Not when the only smells would be that of litter and smoke from _God_ knows what rolled up in some junkie's mouth. No, the city life was _not_ for him.

He sighed again, taking a container of ice cream out of the freezer. _Homemade_ ice cream, not some processed thing with glucose and crap like that that you can get from _any_ store, but ice cream that someone had actually taken the time and effort to stir around and around for _hours_. You couldn't do that with the hostile hustle and bustle of city life clawing at the back of your mind.

He scooped himself a generous serving of the sparkling white treat and put the container back into the freezer. He then went back out the front door, staring up at the rest of the house as he walked through it, as if it was the last time he'd ever see it. And, as he had to painfully remind himself, it might just _be _the very last time. When it came to _his_ parents, you could never know.

He opened the door, careful not to spill any of the frozen treat. He plopped himself down at the picnic table in the middle of the spacious front yard, within clear view of the long dirt driveway that, it being late May, was now nothing but a pale dusty strip in between a field and the yard. The field was covered in wildflowers ranging in color from yellow to purple, and every color in between. Attending to these were a number of fuzzy fat bumblebees, shiny, fierce-looking dragonflies, and of course a marvelous array of brightly colored butterflies that were so attracted to the flowers. And, if Shikamaru had been looking hard enough instead of staring off into space wondering how he could live without all of this, he would have seen six or seven blue butterflies fluttering around a mess of light brown hair poking up out of the grass, and the twitch of a purple skirt as a dragonfly landed to rest its wings on what appeared to be a perfectly round hill just right for that sort of endeavor.

But he _wasn't _looking, and soon after he sat down, he began to realize just exactly how hot the sun made the seat of the picnic table, and how bright the glare from it was in his hazel eyes. He sighed for a third time, and stood up, picking up the bowl as he did so. He walked sedately across the lawn until he reached the edge of the house, and then settled down in a corner that was not only untouched by the sun at this time of day, but was in perfect range of it in the morning, which meant that the dark green grass formed a soft, sweet-smelling cushion for him to stretch out on.

After he had finished the ice cream and laid the empty bowl an arm's length away from him, he yawned and placed his arms across his chest. Before he knew it, he was dozing off to the sounds of a lazy summer afternoon…

And waking up to the sounds of pots and pans clattering.

He stirred upon hearing the clamor, and it took a few seconds to register that the noises were coming from_ inside_ the house. He picked up the bowl and stretched, then raced around to the front door. It was wide open. That was odd. His parents never left the door open. And he was sure he closed it when he'd gone out.

He cautiously stepped into the house, moving quickly but silently, a skill he'd picked up from the deer in the woods while watching them one day. He heard another loud crash, and a muffled cry. His heart started beating faster.

He peered around the corner of the door, heart pounding in his ears…

"You stupid, fat little…" a slim girl with long blonde hair who wore a purple skirt and a black tank top was hissing at a boy with spiky brown hair with a green jacket and a pair of jean shorts. Neither of the two had on shoes, and upon close inspection, Shikamaru noticed that their clothes were patched and worn, and the boy's jacket was torn in many places.

The girl was obviously talking about the clattering of pots that had woken Shikamaru up, the evidence of which was scattered across the floor of the normally spotless kitchen. The boy was looking at his feet, and with every word the girl said, cringed as if hit. The girl raised her hand above her head, and Shikamaru realized she was holding his mother's frying pan in it.

He gasped loudly as she brought he pan down on the boy's head, resulting in a noise similar to the second one he'd heard upon walking into the house, followed by the same cry coming from the boy. The gasp, unfortunately, was _too_ loud, and both turned to face him.

"See what you did, lard ass? You woke him up! Now we have to get rid of him and find the cash before someone else comes!"

Thieves! There were two people robbing his house!


	2. Flutter by, Butterfly

Nice little chapter. A few pasts are dealt with. Brought Naruto in earlier than planned... But oh well.

* * *

"What are you doing in my house?" Was the only thing Shikamaru could think to say, although the girl's previous statement about _cash_ had made it quite obvious what the pair of strangers was _doing in his house._ The girl straightened up and smoothed her long, light blonde hair.

"Well it's obvious we came to rob you," she said haughtily. She nudged the boy and he silently nodded in agreement.

"But why would you want to do that?" Again, his question had already been answered, this time by their clothes. Why else would there be rips and tears and other such worn out patches?

"Because, we're poor. Poor and_ desperate_." She crossed the room menacingly, frying pan in hand. The boy finally looked up and grabbed her shoulder.

"I… I don't think you should do that…" he muttered. Shikamaru noticed beetle-black eyes standing out from the boy's other, more pale features, among which were two red spirals on his cheeks.

"Shut up, dimwit! …You don't want me to hit you again, do you?" she asked in a sickly sweet voice, a smirk spreading across her face.

"N-no…" He stepped back and looked at his feet again. "But P-Pig…"

"_What?_" She hissed, turning her back on Shikamaru. He tapped her on the shoulder. She whipped around and he socked her once in the jaw. She went down, hard. The other boy shrank back into a corner, his black eyes full of fear.

"Hey," Shikamaru said, approaching the boy, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Y-Yeah but you just hurt P-Pig!" He squealed in terror.

"She was about to hurt_ me._" He smiled and held out his hand. "Besides… you don't look like you even want to be here."

"Well, uh, no… No I don't, I don't like stealing but Pig says we can't eat otherwise!" He cried frantically. "Don't turn us in or nothing! Please?"

"Okay, I won't… If you help me clean this up." The other boy nodded and took his hand. "So, what's your name, huh?"

"They, um… They call me Butterfly." Oh. So it was like that, eh? Sure, lots of people around there had nicknames. In fact, even Shikamaru had one.

"Well, Butterfly… You can call me Deer." He smiled, despite the fact that someone had just broken into his house, woken him up, and threatened him, all in less than five minutes. So they set to work, picking up the pans that Butterfly had dropped on the floor of the kitchen. "Why'd you drop them?" Shikamaru asked, opening the cabinet and placing them back in one by one.

"Oh, I um…" the other boy was blushing slightly. "It was stupid really, but those things on the walls reminded me of my parents… I remember they liked things like that…"

"Oh," Shikamaru said softly, the underlying words in what Butterfly had just said hitting him, "So you mean they're…"

"They died, yeah… Pig's did too. It was a car crash…" he trailed off.

"Why do you let her boss you around like that?" Shikamaru asked, gesturing to the unconscious form of the girl that he'd picked up and slung across one of the many old-fashioned chairs around the dark oaken table sitting in the middle of the kitchen.

"Well… She's really not bad. She isn't a b-bad person, she just… Ever since our parents… we have to fend for ourselves."

"That's not an excuse. She was beating you over the head with a _pan_, that ain't right."

"I've had worse…" Butterfly muttered, picking up the last pan.

"Like what?" Shikamaru closed the cabinet.

"Uhm," Butterfly muttered, looking down at his feet yet again. "I don't wanna talk about it…"

"Ah. So now what do we do?" Shikamaru asked, quickly changing the subject.

"I don-"

"_Deer!"_ A high-pitched voice came from the front door. "You home, man?"

"Who the…" Shikamaru muttered, stalking over to where the door had been left open. "Yeah, I'm home," he called.

"Yo! It's me, Fox," a boy with messy blonde hair said, scrambling over the threshold.

"Fox… from school? What are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked, approaching him.

"Can't a guy stop by a friend's house?" he cracked a cheesy smile and nudged him.

"Friend?" Shikamaru asked, finally closing the door.

"Sure. What, you didn't think we were friends?" Shikamaru thought about it. True, Fox was the closest thing he had to a friend. But still, showing up unannounced…?

"Well, I'm just making new friends all over the place toda-" He stopped when they reached the kitchen.

"What is it?" Fox asked, waving a hand in front of his face, "Hello, earth-to-Deer?"

"I-It's nothing." Literally, it was nothing. No one was there-it was as if Butterfly and Pig never existed.

"All righty then… Actually, the real reason I came here…"

"Yes?"

"I heard you were moving," Fox said, a shadow crossing his face.

"…yeah…" Shikamaru mumbled.

"You can't move! You're my only friend! …We have to put a stop to this!"

--

Chouji watched the two talking from the window. He sighed, shifted Ino's weight and walked down into the woods, stopping only to watch a deer cross his path.


End file.
